


Opening Gambit

by VivWiley



Series: Harm's Way [2]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: 4th Season, Gen, Memento mori, Unrequited (episode)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-19
Updated: 2013-05-19
Packaged: 2017-12-12 06:47:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/808534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VivWiley/pseuds/VivWiley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Skinner begins to understand the consequences of his deal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Opening Gambit

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE: This is more or less a continuation of my story of "Harm's Way," which was an attempt to explain why Skinner made the deal with CSM in Memento Mori. This piece should stand alone, but may make more sense if you've read "Harm's Way," or have at least seen the ep of MM. 
> 
> Disclaimer: The characters of Dana Scully, Fox Mulder, Walter Skinner, and the Cigarette Smoking Man are the property of Chris Carter, Fox Broadcasting and Ten-Thirteen Productions, and have been used without permission. No copyright infringement is intended, nor are the characters being used for commercial purposes.

It had begun.

He was actually surprised. It was an unexpectedly subtle maneuver by the Chain Smoking Bastard, or whoever it was that he represented. Skinner had understood that there would be a significant price to pay for Scully's miracle. He'd been tensed up for weeks. Waiting for the blow to fall from the shadows. Waiting for the ambush in the jungle. What he hadn't anticipated was that the price might be exacted in large and small ways -- that it could begin with something as "normal" as a move to discredit him and/or the X-Files division.

************

From the beginning, Skinner had wondered why the Anti-Terrorism Task Force had been "dumped in his lap" as Mulder so bluntly, but succinctly, put it. It was far removed from his division's normal responsibilities, and the only thing he'd been able figure out was that it had something to do with his own military background. 

The FBI and the military had an uneasy relationship at best, and given the time-critical nature of this particular action, Skinner had figured that maybe the brass thought he'd make the best liaison. 

It had bothered him. But there hadn't been any cigarette smoke in his office for weeks, so he'd allowed himself to believe that it was just one more result of bureaucratic thinking. Just one more example of the Cover Your Ass mentality in and around the Bureau. 

This assignment _did_ have risk written all over it. Twelve hours or less to catch an apparently well-trained and well-organized assassin, but it was the sort of thing that the Bureau paid him to do.

The ticking clock on the case coupled with the complete lack of evidence or even rational theories as the day wore on only added to his increasing sense of frustration and irritation. Nothing had felt right about the whole thing. And, as Mulder's theory began to look better and better he knew there was something seriously wrong.

So when Mulder finally put the pieces together for him that command tent near the Wall, Skinner had felt the noose begin to tighten around his neck, after all.

There was the added difficulty of working with Mulder and Scully on this case. He kept wanting to ask Scully how she was, how her treatment was going. Wanted desperately for some reassurance that the chain smoking SOB had begun to uphold his end of their as yet unspoken bargain. But he just couldn't bring himself to bring it up. 

No matter what she told him, it wouldn't be reassuring. He was sure that if the miracle had already been induced -- if Scully's latest tests had shown the tumor gone -- that Mulder and Scully would have told him. If she avoided the questions, or gave vague reassurances about prognosis as expected, he would only feel like he was throwing her imminent mortality in her face.

To compound the problem, Mulder was being his usual irritating self, and Skinner, for reasons he really couldn't completely fathom, just didn't want to deal with him. 

Mulder, of course, irritated Skinner at the best of times. Much as he had come to admire the agent's intelligence, unique abilities and convictions, Skinner was still enough of a Marine to find Mulder's complete disregard for rules and hierarchy suspect, if not somehow dangerous.

So, Skinner had kept looking to Scully on this case. Needing her level reason more than ever. He found that he didn't trust Mulder's source. Hell, he wasn't sure how much he trusted Mulder's judgement at all these days. He continued to trust Mulder's passion and conviction -- he just mistrusted the paths down which they might lead Mulder. But he trusted Scully to know when to trust Mulder.

************

Skinner was dispassionate enough to realize that his own heightened sense of paranoia was a reaction to the impending doom that he sensed was coming. 

He also knew that his unease in dealing with Mulder probably stemmed from an incipient guilt of the betrayals that he knew would be coming.

He sometimes wondered to himself, too, in those early morning hours that he could no longer sleep through, if he felt guilty on an entirely different level for taking Mulder's place. Skinner wasn't sure of exactly what there was between Mulder and Scully. He wasn't sure he really wanted to know. But he understood that Mulder had certain rights of precedence with and for Scully. And Skinner had been the one to make the deal.

Not a man prone to guilt, on the whole, Skinner had known that he was entering new territory from the moment he'd arranged the meeting with Cancer Man. Knew that every gesture, every word from that moment on would take on double meanings.

He stood by that decision. The Chain Smoker and what he represented needed to be stopped. Skinner hated that, at least for now, he would have to aid their ends. But VC guerrilla tactics had taught him that sometimes strategic retreat can be the most advantageous move in the long run.

And Skinner knew the war would only be won in the long term. And he knew that strategic placement of forces was the other critical factor.

Skinner planned to act as a double agent to the best of his ability. But he also knew that he'd placed a critical weapon in the hands of the Network. They now knew that he was willing to sacrific a great deal for Scully's life. 

The deal had had to be made, but it had narrowed his future.

***********

So standing in that tent, he knew. He knew that Mulder had read the situation correctly. He'd been set up to fail. It certainly wasn't the first time he'd been faced with such a situation -- he was a Federal bureaucrat, after all -- he was used to all kinds of inter- and intra-office politics and maneuvering.

The utter callousness of this particular exercise caught him slightly off guard, but not for long, really. After all, it was only 3 lives this time. Assuming he failed, as he was meant to.

He appreciated the inherent symbolism of Teager's final victim being a _Marine_ General. Another warning to Skinner, or perhaps a grimly ironic wink. Skinner had actually indirectly met General Block in Vietnam -- Captain Block at the time. Block had commanded an amphibious assault platoon for whose landing Skinner's unit had been ordered to provide cover-fire.

Block had been a young hard-assed Captain in those days -- a Marine's Marine, or so he fancied himself. 

The landing had gone poorly. The VC had surprised them. 

Badly out-positioned, and in danger of being surrounded, Skinner's unit commander Captain King had told Block to pull back. To re-stage the landing later. 

Block had refused, and the ensuing action had cost both U.S. units heavy casualties, including the life of Charlie Hill, Skinner's best friend in the unit.

The two units hadn't crossed paths again, but Block's name had kept cropping up -- usually in connection with actions that were risky, but carried the potential for a lot of "glory."

It hadn't surprised Skinner to learn that Block had made General. Nor had Mulder's news that Block might be part of a commission that suppressed information about POWs surprised him either.

Skinner just hoped that the Network, as he now referred to them in his mind, didn't know about Block's landing and Charlie's death. He didn't think he could think about that many layers of interwoven conspiracy and connection. He didn't want to feel the leash that firmly around his neck.

It hadn't escaped Skinner's notice, either, that only three of the King death cards had been played. Clearly the missing fourth card was to have been a warning and a promise. 

Someday an invisible assassin would find him. But not until he was no longer useful. 

He'd failed at his expected failure. He wondered what the price for _that_ would be. 

He also began to re-evaluate how difficult it might be to counter Mulder and Scully's investigations if that became the order.

He'd known they were good. He'd thought perhaps that the distractions of Scully's illness would have slowed them. He'd under-estimated them. He wondered how often the Network had under-estimated them, and what the consequences had been. 

Actually, he knew some of the consequences. He'd helped to scatter one of the Network's rare blunders across the 4-corners area of the southwest.

He'd been right to keep Mulder free of the Network. Watching Mulder and Scully work, argue, deduce, function, he'd been fascinated. The dynamic tension was electric -- vital. It gave him back an odd sense of hope.

************

Mulder's report of the Army's identification of the body as a mental patient named Lynch had barely registered. It was so completely expected. Skinner speculated briefly about whether there had ever been a Lynch, or if it was just another deception. Then he found he really didn't care.

Facing Mulder's self-righteous anger about the need for disclosure and truth was familiar by now -- what was unfamiliar was the sudden weariness and something almost akin to sorrow that it produced. And an unexpected empathy.

He wanted justice for Teager as badly as Mulder did -- more undoubtedly. Mulder, for all his compassion and passion hadn't been There. Had never been In-country. He didn't know. 

But there would be no justice for Teager.

Mulder's words, "With all due respect, Sir, he could be you" had an unexpected resonance to them. Skinner knew it was already him. But when the inevitable end came, there would be no wall on which to inscribe his name.

Teager's dying litany had haunted him all night. Name, rank, unit and date of birth, just as he'd been drilled to do himself. 

He wondered who would be standing over his body as he died. Who would be listening.

"Skinner, Walter S., Assistant Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, March 23, 1953..."

It really didn't matter. There was a meeting to go to. 

The Chain Smoker had a new case for the X-Files team.

END

**Author's Note:**

> Author's note (from when I first posted): I don't know that we know, in the show, how old Skinner is, so I made a guess that he was about 18 when he enlisted, and that he served at the end stages of the war.


End file.
